Law and Economics Forum

[bigTomthumb]

I just finished a graduate degree in economics and want to find a law school that offers quant oriented classes that combine the two areas (specifically international trade and law). I've been looking at places like Stanford and Chicago, but I'm not sure if they just have research centers and a couple of classes or if they're more organized programs.

Do such programs exist or should I just be looking for research centers located at these schools? Also, if anybody knows of any which are at schools that are less difficult to get into than these two, please let me know!

Thanks!

[AreJay711]

Law schools don't offer quantitative classes. Our torts professor had to spend 10 min explaining how to determine percentages.

[2014]

Your best bet is probably research centers or connecting with faculty who are interested in it, but law and economics showed up in the majority of my Chicago 1L classes and there are several electives that seem to focus on it from various angles. We have a plurality of the known academics on it too I believe.

Not sure if it's the best reason to choose a school, but even if it's not Stanford and Chicago give you great job outlooks so it will work itself out.

[potted plant]

You're not going to find a lot of quantitative classes anywhere. A lot of law school classes use econ concepts, but they're not going to involve a lot of number crunching. Anecdotally, I've heard that the econ department at Stanford doesn't take "law and economics" very seriously as a field and generally that's because the professors doing law and economics aren't doing enough quantitative work for it to really be considered econ.

[jselson]

Related question for myself, although kinda hijacking the thread: I have almost an entirely humanities/teaching focused background, but I'm looking to focus on business/regulations/administrative law type classes in law school. I read a lot of economics blogs and have some basic understanding of Econ and business, tho, from self-study. I'm just wondering how much I might be at a disadvantage in these types of classes, if any?

[AreJay711]

I found business background useful for corp classes and economics classes useful for torts and antitrust but I don't think you will be at a significant disadvantage.

[JJ123]

There are very few programs in general that do quant focused study. MBA in finance often isn't very quant heavy. You want something like a master's in financial engineering or something like that. I don't think any law school is going to offer anything close to what you want.

[Ti Malice]

Anecdotally, I've heard that the econ department at Stanford doesn't take "law and economics" very seriously as a field and generally that's because the professors doing law and economics aren't doing enough quantitative work for it to really be considered econ.

No doubt that's true just about everywhere. Legal scholarship in general isn't taken very seriously outside of law schools.

[ghostofdreams]

George Mason has a law & economics center. Just throwing that out there.

[Borg]

I was really disappointed by the dearth of quantitative analysis in my law school. A lot of allegedly intelligent students really couldn't do math, and I think that classes that could have been more quant heavy suffered as a result (i.e. antitrust). I also found that a ton of students had just avoided econ and finance classes their whole lives to pad their undergraduate GPAs, and it slowed down a lot of conversations pretty substantially. I think that the key is just to go to whatever school you like (sounds like you're in HYSCCN range) and try to link up with a faculty member who has a PhD in economics and do serious research with her. My gut feeling is that the best schools for it might be Harvard, Chicago, and Columbia, but I think that at any of the T6 you'll be able to find a good mentor with whom you can do research.

[jselson]

I was really disappointed by the dearth of quantitative analysis in my law school. A lot of allegedly intelligent students really couldn't do math, and I think that classes that could have been more quant heavy suffered as a result (i.e. antitrust). I also found that a ton of students had just avoided econ and finance classes their whole lives to pad their undergraduate GPAs, and it slowed down a lot of conversations pretty substantially. I think that the key is just to go to whatever school you like (sounds like you're in HYSCCN range) and try to link up with a faculty member who has a PhD in economics and do serious research with her. My gut feeling is that the best schools for it might be Harvard, Chicago, and Columbia, but I think that at any of the T6 you'll be able to find a good mentor with whom you can do research.

Like, what level of difficulty are we talking about that students couldn't do? Calc? Algebra?

[Borg]

I was really disappointed by the dearth of quantitative analysis in my law school. A lot of allegedly intelligent students really couldn't do math, and I think that classes that could have been more quant heavy suffered as a result (i.e. antitrust). I also found that a ton of students had just avoided econ and finance classes their whole lives to pad their undergraduate GPAs, and it slowed down a lot of conversations pretty substantially. I think that the key is just to go to whatever school you like (sounds like you're in HYSCCN range) and try to link up with a faculty member who has a PhD in economics and do serious research with her. My gut feeling is that the best schools for it might be Harvard, Chicago, and Columbia, but I think that at any of the T6 you'll be able to find a good mentor with whom you can do research.

Like, what level of difficulty are we talking about that students couldn't do? Calc? Algebra?

Ohhh my friend, you vastly overestimate many of your law school peers. I never say where I went on these boards, but it was a tip top school. People were having issues with percentages in my tax class.

[sinfiery]

Wtf

[elterrible78]

I was really disappointed by the dearth of quantitative analysis in my law school. A lot of allegedly intelligent students really couldn't do math, and I think that classes that could have been more quant heavy suffered as a result (i.e. antitrust). I also found that a ton of students had just avoided econ and finance classes their whole lives to pad their undergraduate GPAs, and it slowed down a lot of conversations pretty substantially. I think that the key is just to go to whatever school you like (sounds like you're in HYSCCN range) and try to link up with a faculty member who has a PhD in economics and do serious research with her. My gut feeling is that the best schools for it might be Harvard, Chicago, and Columbia, but I think that at any of the T6 you'll be able to find a good mentor with whom you can do research.

Like, what level of difficulty are we talking about that students couldn't do? Calc? Algebra?

Ohhh my friend, you vastly overestimate many of your law school peers. I never say where I went on these boards, but it was a tip top school. People were having issues with percentages in my tax class.

This doesn't surprise me at all, actually. I'm pretty interested in quant stuff myself, and I've already resigned myself to the fact that it's something I'll have to diligently seek out myself. I just used the word "myself" three times in a sentence, and I'll be damned if I'm going to change it.

[elterrible78]

Edited: wrong thread.

[nerv]

Chicago has an institute for law and economics that it has recently poured some money into (see article here) but from what I understand, it seems to be more geared towards organizing conferences and paper series for faculty and the like as well as trying to spread the chicago "brand" to places like china through things like summer programs. I'm not sure how much use a j.d. student can get from the resources there but if you have a graduate degree in economics, you'll probably be able to find professors who do a lot of empirical work to take you on as an r.a. or something. Also, if you are dual-enrolled in the ph.d. program, I think some of the courses can be double-counted for the j.d. degree as well.